1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for providing information from various sensors mounted on a vehicle to other vehicles. More particularly, this invention relates to ensuring reliability of the sensor information.
2) Description of the Related Art
A high-level road traffic system is now under development with an object to solve traffic problems such as the traffic accidents and traffic jams. In this road traffic system, people, roads, and vehicles are connected by a network, using the state-of-the-art information communication technology.
The running support system is an example of the high-level road traffic system. In this running support system, various sensors such as the visible sensors, infrared radiation sensors, millimeter-wave sensors are installed on the road and information such as speed, distance, road information, and information about obstacles obtained by the sensors is transmitted to the vehicles that are running on the road. However, huge cost is required if the sensors are to be installed on all the roads.
A running support system that reduces the cost by reducing the number of sensors is known. In this system, sensors are mounted on the vehicles and the number of sensors installed on the road is reduced to minimum. In this running support system, if a vehicle is parked on the road, the position sensor mounted on that vehicle transmits the position of that vehicle to other vehicles. Thus, the drivers of the other vehicles will know that a vehicle has been parked on the road and they will take care while driving which shall lead to prevention of accidents.
Thus, to lower the cost, conventionally, it is necessary to mount sensors on the vehicles, moreover, the information obtained by the sensors mounted on a vehicle is transmitted to the other vehicles without driver intervention. As a result, there is a problem that personal information of the vehicles is transmitted to the other vehicles without the permission and/or knowledge of the drivers. Therefore, the drivers or the owners of the vehicles were reluctant to install the sensors on their vehicles.
On the other hand, it is necessary for road administrators to provide reliable sensor information with respect to many and unspecified vehicles, from a standpoint of supporting safe driving. However, conventionally, there is no means for verifying the reliability of sensor information collected from respective vehicles. Hence, it has been difficult to provide sensor information having high reliability, which becomes a barrier in developing the running support system.